Page 2 of Pressure

“Emilia, is Elijah in? It’s Lance Moss.”

“Sorry, Mr. Moss. He’s in New York all week. Mrs. Barrett is in her office if that helps.”

He started to say no thank you but thought better of it. Holly was easy to talk to.

“I’ll say hello to her,” he said.

The phone started ringing again and he waited for Holly to answer.

“Lance, what’s up?” she asked, a smile in her voice. “I hear I’m second to my husband, I should be offended.”

He chuckled. “Not at all, Holly. I was calling to tell your husband he was right. But since he’s not in, I thought maybe you could help me. I’m having some more security breaches here that aren’t making sense, and I’m losing clients. Got any pointers for how to talk to them?”

She was quiet for a moment. “Could it be associated with the potential leaks at Solitaire? Is this personal?”

She’d caught on quick. “I’m starting to think so, but I’m not sure. I just need to stop the bleeding so I don’t start losing investors.”

“I can send you over some bullet points if you want. I can’t promise they’ll work, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Thanks.”

When he ended the call, he tried Elijah’s cellphone. He didn’t answer, so Lance turned back to his three-monitor computer set up and began running through strings of code.

An hour later, his phone ringing brought him out of the trance that only code, and a beautiful woman tied to his bed could put him in.

“My wife says you’re looking for me and told me not to gloat. I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Elijah said when he answered.

Lance chuckled. “I like her. Listen, I just wanted to apologize for my stubbornness. If you still want to hire an outsider to look at my system at Solitaire, I won’t argue anymore.”

“That’s good, Lance. I’ve got a meeting scheduled with someone on Thursday in Colorado if you want to be there.”

“Do I want to know who you’ve hired or how you found them?” he asked warily. His security systems were like his children, and he hated the idea of someone he considered inferior in skill coming in to tell him his babies were ugly.

Elijah just laughed. “Show up on Thursday and you’ll find out. Don’t worry, Russell vetted them personally, and they come highly recommended.”

Lance ran a hand through his hair and paced his office. “I’m feeling vulnerable here, Eli. It’s not a thing I’m used to.”

“That’s what family is for, Lance. You’re allowed to feel vulnerable around us.”

It sounded good on the surface, but Lance had always found that it wasn’t that easy. He didn’t correct him though.

“I need to get back into a meeting, but we’ll talk on Thursday.”

As he set the phone down, his assistant opened his door looking apprehensive.

“What is it, Kimberly?”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Mr. Holcomb called and is asking about transferring his data security to another company.”

He sat back in his chair and slumped. “It’s fine, Kimberly. If he wants to talk to me first, I’ll take the call. Otherwise just let him out of his contract.”

When she shut the door, he buried his face in his hands.

♦♦♦♦

“Thank you so much, Mr. Adler. I’m excited for an excuse to hang around people in the community again.”

“Marissa, what do I have to do to get you to call me Russell?”

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